”I recommend the book to one and all whom have an interest in Victorian Society, for the off-beat origins of many institutions that are influential on our lives today. More than a few ideas found within Mystical Vampire such as the possibility of Annie Besant and Helena Blavatsky being more than just friends, make the book a good investment. For the Ripperologist, the two (and there may be other gems in there, so buy it!) items I mentioned on Collins / Stephenson are worth the price of the book alone. Few books (Sugden, Begg and Evans come to mind) are as well referenced and footnoted as this one. Ms Farnell has done an excellent job on her subject, Minna Mabel Collins.”
Howard Brown, Casebook: Jack The Ripper, the Web’s largest Jack The Ripper public archive www.casebook.org

”Kim Farnell has done devotees of gaslight and mediums a service in bringing Mabel’s world back to life.” Gary Lachman – The Independent On Sunday.
Gary Lachman’s works include:Turn Off Your Mind -The Mystic Sixties and The Dark Side of The Age of Aquarius (Sidgwick & Jackson) and The Dedalus Occult Reader: The Garden of Hermetic Dreams (Dedalus).

MYSTICAL VAMPIRE
The characters:
*Mabel Collins, Theosophist, novelist, fashion columnist, journalist and anti-vivisection campaigner
*Madame Blavatsky the extraordinary and highly influential Russian occultist and author, and other eminent members of her Theosophical Society
*Annie Besant, social reformer and Theosophist
*Robert Donston Stephenson, a suspect for Jack the Ripper and Mabel’s lover
*Frances Power Cobbe, social reformer, suffragist and anti-vivisection campaigner
*Charlotte Despard, social reformer, and anti-vivisection campaigner

Mabel Collins was an independent woman in the oppressive Victorian climate. She wrote many novels, but most will remember Mabel Collins, for her best selling mystical text Light On The Path published by the Theosophical Society. After her fall out with Madame Blavatsky,she carried on with her life as an esotericist, traveller and writer. She was moved by the plight and suffering of helpless creatures and became a campaigner for the abolition of vivisection.